The Problem with Men (and Women) These Days

I love how things can combine and mix inside my head creating ideas. For example, a while ago I read this post over at the blog Guys on Modesty. And then, slightly more recently, I watched some of the movie Enchanted (yes that admittedly cut-rate Disney movie about a fairytale princess who winds up in big, scary, real-world New York.) This movie:

But I realized something when these two very different things collided in my head: guys need to be more like Prince Charmings, girls need to be less like damsels in distress.

So…why aren’t men Prince Charming these days? Is it just that all the good ones are already taken? Or is it more of a society-wide problem?

To put it simply men need to be more manly. Courage, dedication, fidelity: these are all things Enchanted’s Prince Edward possesses along with some not-so-nice characteristics as well. But I figure the others are common to almost every half-decent man on a white horse. What are these three exactly? Well, in one word: chivalry. Courage, dedication, and fidelity are all part of being a man and can more or less relate back to chivalry. Sadly, chivalry seems dead in most parts of this country. There are a some places where men still hold open doors for women but I honestly haven’t seen very many.

So, why is chivalry on its deathbed? Because feminists killed chivalry. Now, when I say feminists, what I’m actually referring to is a group of women who subscribe to an ideology that doesn’t appreciate what makes women women. One term I’ve heard for these women, and which I think suits them well is fauxminists. I like that. After all, real feminists glory in being a woman, whereas these women seem to do everything in their power to make women more like men. They think women are just as good as men (I certainly don’t disagree) and that they’re just the same too (that’s where they lose me). Fauxminists do things like encouraging the use of contraception. Thereby those pesky cycles and that horrible idea of becoming pregnant is taken care of. And if one does happen to get pregnant well, for a fauxminist that’s really no issue; abortions are legal after all. (As you may have guessed these areas are another place they’d lose me if I wasn’t already lost.) These are the women who turn their noses up at men who open doors, the ladies who have an “I am woman hear me roar” mentality.

The way to solve the issue then? Women should be more womanly. They should be less manly. And more feminine. And they should be true feminists too, in the sense that they appreciate what makes them women. And by the way, being a woman is beautiful.
So, what happened to being ladylike? What happened to wiles? and mystique? and being pretty? Now I’m not saying we need to all have long hair and wear skirts all the time (I don’t). But the world would be quite different if women acted like true feminists and made an effort to be more womanly inside and out: through how they act and what they say and what they do.

Alice Von Hildebrand once said “If the women are pure the men will be pure”. One might add, “if the women are authentic the men will be authentic” or, “if the women are womanly the men will be manly”. Because it certainly seems having manly women has only made the men less manly.

I realize I really didn’t cover why girls need to be less like damsels in distress. I’ll get to that in my next post, when I’ll talk about waiting.

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3 thoughts on “The Problem with Men (and Women) These Days”

I think this is well-put. The reasoning behind feminists wanting to act like men, is because there is a social construction of gender norms and roles. So there are specific ways a man should act and a woman should act. So these feminists that you mention want to point out that they can do things a man can do, and try their best to not be judged by it. Because after all when a woman does take on masculine traits she is automatically unladylike, or a “tomboy”. I love to look pretty, and dress up, and be girl. But at the same time, I don’t want society to see me as just this girly-girl, who is only good for makeup and fashion. A lot of these disney like movies are unrealistic anyways, and want people to live this fairy-tale life, that becomes way out of hand. But overall, I liked some of your points 🙂